Research project
within the Leibniz-Verbundvorhaben „Digital Inequalities“
In Germany, 'computer work as a profession' has been the subject of various popular guides since the late 1970s. Kurt Weichler's book on the new 'computer professions', published in 1987, uses biographical sketches and interviews to paint a picture of a field characterised by (brilliant) outsiders with fractured professional biographies as well as ambitious entrepreneurs. For many of the digital experts, working with computers seemed to be a calling. As a result, "every good programmer [...] is divorced at least three times" or only spends Sundays with his family "under pressure from his wife".
This cliché of the (male) computer expert differed fundamentally from the 'classic' worker of high modernity, both habitually and in value to the company. He was expected less to have formal qualifications or work experience and more to act as an “entrepreneur in his own right” (Bröckling 2007). The research project analyses how these new experts in West Germany challenged established corporate hierarchies, procedures and work processes and thus constituted themselves as a new class between the 1970s and 1990s. As the avantgarde of “technologically stimulated singularisation” in the world of work (Reckwitz 2017), they also appear as harbingers and agents of neoliberalisation,characterised by a polarisation between highly and low-skilled workers, the flexibilisation of work and the establishment of new systems of inequality. In the computer industry, for example, a second class of IT workers emerged alongside the highly paid computer experts – for example in data centres – whose everyday lives were characterised by neo-taylorist work processes in three shifts (Boes 2003). The aim of the project is to analyse the digital transformation of the world of work, with a particular focus on (intersectionally conceived) class conflicts since the 'long' 1970s.
For more information see the project website: https://digital-inequalities.com
